


close the door on your way out

by rillrill



Series: Revolutionary Whore [10]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Blow Jobs, Discipline, Jealousy, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Riding Crops, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:55:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re jealous,” Alexander laughs breathily as Washington smacks his thigh again with the crop, considerably more sharply this time. The laugh turns into a gasp midway, Alexander glancing down at the floor to compose himself, and Washington runs the crop up his bare chest, up to his throat and all the way to his chin — he tips his chin upward with the motion, forcing himself to meet Washington’s eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place circa 1792; references made herein to William Duer and the Panic of 1792. Not that important. If you've read Chernow you're fine. If not: Alex hired his "witty, elegant, fashionable, and vivacious" "old friend from their college years" William Duer (who had recently married Alex's ex-flame Kitty Livingston) as his Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Duer proceeded to cause one of the first financial crises in the history of the USA, and eventually ended up spending the rest of his life in debtor's prison after losing his job and all his money in the ensuing crisis.
> 
> Not important, but fun to know, especially how Chernow does not describe Duer with a single heterosexual-coded adjective. Not a one.

  
  
  
Alexander is slipping.  
  
Since his appointment to the Treasury, he has kept himself busy, true. The top of his middle finger has gone numb from his quill pressing into it as he writes, and he feels recharged, energized, as if this is where he was meant to be all along. The war was a stopover; now, in peacetime, he has work to do. He wakes early, kisses Eliza in her sleep, and hurries to his office; comes back home only to sleep and eat. He is moving faster than he has the capacity to regulate.  
  
But, well, that is what it is. He does not owe anyone else his time or his pause; he doesn’t have to stop working for anyone. He can’t. That’s the other thing. He throws himself into his work headlong, letting the force of momentum keep him going. He’s running forward on a ship, pitching himself forward with the force of the tides, simply praying he won’t be thrown overboard.  
  
He does not _try._ He simply does. Because he’s compelled to do — he can’t fight the horrible, itching feeling that if he doesn’t, if he doesn’t get it all out, write it all down, that the weight of his words intruding on his mind will weigh him down, so heavy he won’t be able to get back up. Fight demons with words. Fight fire with more fire. It’s what he does. It’s what he’s always done.  
  
Burr is there. Burr is there, an ever-present thorn in his side, and sometimes the friction between them ignites. It is what it is; they have no expectations. They apologize for nothing. He lets Burr use him, uses him back in turn. Because Burr doesn’t want anything else from him. Burr doesn’t want his fidelity or his name. Burr wants nothing but a fair fight, something hard to push against, and Alexander is happy to give him that, provided he gets what he wants in the end as well — someone to hold him down, fuck him roughly, make him feel like he’s there and present and _real_.  
  
They have spent most of their lives skirting each other. But Burr is around more and more. And more and more often, they collide. And Alexander doesn’t regret it. He lets it happen. He revels in it. He keeps moving forward.  
  
  
  
“Alexander.”  
  
Alexander pauses at the step of Washington’s office. “Sir.”  
  
He waits, half in trepidation. He isn’t certain of what Washington wants, why he’s been summoned here. What he knows is that the look on Washington’s face as he gestures Alexander to shut the door behind him is — it’s unreadable.  
  
He is exhausted; he doesn’t have the temperament for games tonight. He hasn’t slept in nearly a week. With the economy practically in freefall thanks to William Duer’s idiocy, he has too much work and not enough hours in the day to accomplish it all. Washington beckons him closer and sighs. He waits, shifting, in the center of the office as he watches Washington sigh and shuffle the papers on his desk.  
  
“This business with Duer,” Washington says at long last, and Hamilton’s heart jumps. So that’s what this is about. He doesn’t have the patience, or the words, to defend his friend in detail. He opens his mouth in vain, but Washington isn’t finished. “Explain.”  
  
“I — I didn’t think,” Alexander says. His intention was to say more, but as he runs out of words, the sentiment seems to stand on its own. _I didn’t think_. He didn’t. He did what he’s always done, he thought with his cock. “Sir,” he appends.  
  
Washington studies him, quill in hand, before he sighs and sets it down heavily. “You didn’t,” he agrees. “What is William Duer to you, Alexander?”  
  
“An old friend,” he lies, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he shifts uncomfortably in place. “Married to — another old friend. I assure you, I had only the best intentions. As did he, I’m sure. Look, sir, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m in as much shock as you are. I never could have — look, I’m handling this.”  
  
Washington sighs and stands from the desk. “Do you think you ought to be punished for this, Alexander?”  
  
Alexander pauses, truly taken aback. “You trust, then, that I know what I’m doing. We provide the banks with the funds to purchase securities and the market will stabilize itself.”  
  
“I trust you.” Washington stops in front of the office closet, and Alexander studies him carefully. He looks older every day now, his jacket shed, his shirt rumpled and dayworn. His dark brows knit together in a parody of careful thinking as he unlocks the closet door and lets it swing open. The crop hangs on the door, in a central place of honor, and Alexander sucks in a breath as he waits. “Do you?”  
  
Alexander’s voice comes out choked when he answers, and he swallows before he gets the rest of the words out. “I suppose so.”  
  
“Good, then.” Washington sounds almost bored, and Alexander realizes, with a flash of indignation, that he already knew that the crisis would stabilize. That Alexander had a plan. He hadn’t been called here to explain or answer at all; this was all for show, all pretense. He’s almost irritated, and opens his mouth to protest, before Washington says briskly, “On your knees, then, son.”  
  
Alexander knows nothing but obedience in the face of this tone. He sinks to his knees, and moves his hands up to unbutton the collar of his shirt before Washington cocks a brow. “I don’t believe I told you to undress.”  
  
He pulls his hands away, holds them down at his sides. “I apologize, Mr. President.” And then, off Washington’s expectant look, his face growing warm as he says it, he repeats: “I apologize, Father.”  
  
“Good boy,” Washington says warmly. His voice is almost flippant, as if this is some sort of game to him. Alexander watches as he removes the crop from its hook on the closet door and runs his hands over its long stem. Washington looks lost in thought for a moment, perhaps remembering this particular crop’s story of origin; it had gone missing from the stables at Mount Vernon on one of Alexander’s summer visits after the war, and he’d teased Washington long enough to goad him into recovering it by force. Now it hangs here, in his office, and it speaks to the persistent itch under Alexander’s skin that it barely delivers the sensation he needs anymore. He needs more, he needs it harder. But this will do. Under Washington’s eyes and the cool baritone of his voice, this will more than do.  
  
Washington sets the crop down on his desk and crosses to stand in front of it, leaning back on the top of it effortlessly, arms folded in front of him. Alexander shifts on his knees, stiffening in his breeches. “You do realize the monumental inconvenience you’ve served me, though, don’t you?” he asks, beckoning Hamilton to come a little closer. He shuffles forward on his knees, and doesn’t stop until he’s merely a couple feet from where Washington stands. Washington reaches out with one hand and begins to slowly unbutton Alexander’s green velvet jacket, taking each mother-of-pearl button one at a time. “Regardless of whether or not you’ve got it handled — this is my legacy, son, that’s what you always fail to forget. Your actions reflect back on me.”  
  
The jacket slides from his shoulders, and Alexander swallows as he shrugs it off. “I would never intentionally tarnish your public perception,” he says as Washington moves to the buttons on his shirt. “This business with Duer was an unfortunate lapse of judgment on my part. I assure you, he’s been dealt with.”  
  
With a cool laugh, Washington continues to unbutton Alexander’s shirt, yanking it off his shoulders and making expedient work of his undershirt as well. Stripped to the waist, he shifts on his knees, waiting for Washington to move on to his pants, but he doesn’t. Instead, Washington simply sits back on the desk, folds his arms again and stares at him.  
  
“I shouldn’t punish you at all,” he muses out loud. “Your tolerance for pain has always been admirable. It served us well during the war, but now—” He spreads his arms wide, in a parody of a shrug. “I feel as though it might do more harm than good. It wouldn’t be prudent of me to reward such a lapse in judgment, given what I know of your disposition.”  
  
With this, the annoyance that has simmered within Alexander since the beginning of the night, since the start of the whole affair with Duer’s speculatory bent, really, boils over. “Then don’t,” he says sharply. “I’m sure Burr would be happy to pick up wherever you feel it best to leave off tonight. Sir.”  
  
He knows, immediately, that he’s said the wrong thing; that he’s being a little shit. Washington raises both eyebrows and rakes his gaze over Alexander again, and there’s no warmth left to his voice when he speaks again. “Very well,” he says coolly. “I see we aren’t thinking before we speak tonight, son.” He picks up the crop from behind him on the desk and weighs it heavily in his hand. “Perhaps we ought not to speak at all.”  
  
Alexander grinds his teeth, because this isn’t what he wanted, not at all. “Sir, I didn’t—”  
  
“Quiet.” And Washington delivers a sharp tap to his flank, not hard enough to hurt but just enough to sting through his breeches, and Alexander inhales sharply, caught more by surprise than anything else. “I understand your motives, of course, I understand what you’re trying to make me do, but at the same time, you —”  
  
“You’re jealous,” Alexander laughs breathily as Washington smacks his thigh again with the crop, considerably more sharply this time. The laugh turns into a gasp midway, Alexander glancing down at the floor to compose himself, and Washington runs the crop up his bare chest, up to his throat and all the way to his chin — he tips his chin upward with the motion, forcing himself to meet Washington’s eyes.  
  
He swallows. It’s a little less funny in this moment, a little more overwhelming, Washington’s eyes on him like iron pokers, all want and hunger. Alexander feels the heat split between his face and his groin as he tips his head back even further, letting Washington manipulate him with the crop, his loose hair brushing his shoulders and falling a little further down his back.  
  
“Jealousy,” Washington says after a long pause, “is a young man’s game.” He taps Alexander on the thigh again. “Breeches off.”  
  
Alexander doesn’t hesitate, simply unbuttons his pants and sheds them as quickly as he can, hopping to his feet only long enough to shake them and his heeled boots off his feet. He glances down uncomfortably at his body as he kneels again — the long nights and whiskey have taken their toll on him, he is no longer the lithe young tomcat of the war — but if Washington notices, he says nothing, only takes a step closer and cards a hand through Alexander’s loose hair, prompting a comfortable exhale.  
  
“Oh, good, good boy,” Washington says. It still irritates Alexander, how much he seems to be enjoying this, but at the same time, aren’t they both? Still, he thinks, Washington needn’t try to have it both ways; he can’t take genuine offense at Alexander’s taking another lover and then pull at his hair playfully, eliciting — oh — these undignified little moans — _stop it, Alexander, you’re only giving him what he wants_.  
  
But isn’t that the point? Isn’t that the crux of this dynamic between them, that he’ll always give Washington, his President, his General, his Father, whatever he wants in the end? This whatever-it-is between them, it doesn’t have to make sense, just as he and Burr needn’t make sense either. Washington steps back and circles his position on the floor, the crop tapping against his hand as he surveys Alexander from head to toe. “Good Lord,” he murmurs, as he sees what must be left of the belt marks on Alexander’s ass. “You have been—”  
  
“That’s what Burr does to me,” Alexander says, unable to keep the hint of a boast out of his voice. Washington’s wide, heavy hand is between his shoulder blades and it’s pressing him down to the floor, but it doesn’t shut him up; he keeps talking as he presses his cheek to the ground and arches his back, making certain to present an irresistible target. “I keep telling him I can take more, but he does the same as you, tells me he’ll only reward me if I manage not to talk—”  
  
He hears the swish of the crop through the air and then the clap of it making contact before he feels the impact, and for a moment it’s all _impact_ , until the burning sting and the pleasure hit him almost simultaneously. Alexander reels as his cock fills out rapidly, growing from its half-hard state up to full mast as he gasps out a _Thank you, Father_. And Washington only chuckles and pets his hair before he hits him again, expertly landing the crop between the bruises Burr had so deftly left two nights before, with only the slightest overlay between them.  
  
The pain is sharp, it’s exhilarating, and it’s downright centering, the way he gasps and rocks with each subsequent blow. He digs his fingers into the floor, lets Washington lay into him with as much force as he cares to deliver. He’s almost painfully hard, hips snapping and bucking into thin air as Washington lands two sharp blows over the last two unbruised parts of his ass.  
  
“Oh, Alexander,” Washington sighs as he runs the tip of the crop up and down the backs of his thighs lightly. “You enjoy yourself too much down there. Do you think about this when you bait Jefferson in front of me? Do you imagine me taking you over my knee in front of the entire Cabinet, stripping you down and spanking you raw and red until you’re sniffling?”  
  
“I — well, maybe, a little,” Alexander admits sheepishly, caught off-guard by the playfulness still dancing around the edges of Washington’s grave tone.  
  
Washington chuckles. “I thought so,” he says, and traces a figure eight over Alexander’s left inner thigh before hitting the tender skin there hard.  
  
Alexander can’t hold back a gasp, gritting his teeth. “Thank you, Father,” he squeaks, his voice going ragged at the top of its register, and that’s new, he thinks as he unclenches his jaw and forces himself to swallow and relax as the tip of the crop begins to trace over the skin on his right thigh as well. Perfect symmetry. In all things, moderation. This is the crux of Washington’s way with him; he never overloads him with touch or words, instead gives him exactly as much as he needs and not a word or caress more or less.  
  
He feels Washington nudge his knees further apart with his foot, and spreads both legs to accommodate, pressing his face harder against the floor. Through the quickly-descending haze falling over him, he wonders if Washington plans to fuck him like this, on the floor of his office, with no pretense and barely any preparation. Secretly, in some divine compartment of his desire, he hopes for it. But instead, Washington just keeps at his upper and inner thighs, alternating soft taps with sharper smacks, responding in time to each of his vocalizations. Alexander is groaning, wanton and unabashed, his hips bucking in time with each new hit, by the time Washington stops, pauses, and says out loud, “I don’t wish to see you reach your release from this.”  
  
“Then stop hitting me,” Alexander replies petulantly from the floor, and he doesn’t mean it — he knows he can, that’s the thing, he’s not far away from his climax if Washington keeps it up — but the crop is withdrawn anyway, and then Washington’s hand is in his hair, tugging him back up to his aching (buzzing, singing) knees.  
  
He moans out loud as Washington tugs at his hair more sharply, while simultaneously pulling Alexander’s face dangerously close to the bulge in his breeches. He wants to nose against it, open his mouth and lick at the fabric with the flat of his tongue, but instead contents himself to look up through his eyelashes and groan again, even harder, as Washington looks down at him through dark, lust-hazed eyes.  
  
“My God, Alexander,” he murmurs, and Alexander can’t help himself; he presses a chaste kiss through the fabric to the President’s manhood, eyes sliding shut as he does it. He feels the hand in his hair tighten, the blunt ends of fingernails barely scraping against his scalp, and then Washington is pulling away and undoing his breeches quickly.  
  
This he is used to, this is nothing but normal. As Washington traces his thigh with the crop at close range, he opens his mouth, taking the head of his thick, heavy cock between his lips. Alexander has no desire to rush or hurry tonight. If Washington won’t give him what he wants, then he certainly doesn’t plan to reciprocate. He swallows the President down, centimeter by centimeter, swirling his tongue around him and making searing, solid upward eye contact the entire time.  
  
He can see Washington’s entire face change at this, watches his muscles all go a little more slack as he gasps. Fingers tighten in Alexander’s hair again as he moves a little more quickly, up and down, up and down, taking more and more in with each go until his nose is pressed flat against Washington’s belly. He hums happily around the cock in his mouth and reaches up to grip Washington’s thighs, holding them tight and squeezing as Washington begins to fuck his mouth.  
  
In these moments, Alexander admits, he gets what he needs. Much as with Burr — perhaps more than he’ll ever get from Burr. He clenches his fingers around Washington’s dark, firm thighs and opens his throat and allows himself to simply _be_ , to exist as a vessel for his own desire and for Washington’s. He could do this for the rest of his days and never tire of it, serving on his knees at the pleasure of the President.  
  
He can feel his eyes well up with tears as Washington tugs again at his hair, a mere formality at this point. Alexander forces his eyes open to look up, and nods slightly, as much as he can manage, at Washington, who is — well, he’s completely gone, already past the point of no return. And then Washington is coming, spurting hot and bitter down his throat as Alexander splutters and swallows. He’s still not quite used to the taste or sensation despite ample practice by now.  
  
They’re both breathing heavily as Washington pulls away, and Alexander realizes, perhaps belatedly, that he’s still hard, just as Washington casts a glance down at his erection and quirks a smile. “You didn’t touch yourself,” he observes, running his hand through Alexander’s hair affectionately. “Perhaps you _have_ learned. Wonders may never cease, I suppose.”  
  
Alexander bites down on his lower lip. “May I, Father?” he asks, his hand drifting down to touch himself, but Washington shakes his head sharply and reaches down to catch him around the wrist before he can go any further.  
  
“I don’t think so,” he says casually, rubbing his thumb across Alexander’s palm, making him shiver. “Wouldn’t you rather reserve that pleasure for Senator Burr? You shouldn’t give him reason to doubt the privilege of your relationship.” His voice is cool, and it resonates in the dark office, bringing hairs up on the nape of Alexander’s neck, making every inch of his skin feel too warm and too tight.  
  
_No._ This isn’t what he wanted. “Sir, Father — I don’t wish to beg,” he begins, “but I only want — please, sir, I want you. Anything.”  
  
Washington pauses, still clutching Alexander’s hand in his, and Alexander swears he can see the wheels turning in his normally stoic, impassive eyes. But then he shakes his head and drops Alexander’s hand, busying himself with the fastenings of his breeches.  
  
“Tell Senator Burr the President sends his regards,” he says, all warmth gone from his voice in the way he knows sends Alexander almost all the way to the edge. “Close the door on your way out.”  
  
And Alexander is in agony as he dresses quickly, his ruined arousal still making his blood thrum with every step and movement he makes. Washington returns the crop to the closet from where it landed on the desk, his motions loud and final, and when he’s seated at his desk, he looks up to Alexander with another unreadable look.  
  
“Good night, son,” he says, picking up his quill again, and Alexander can barely restrain the whine that presses at the inner seam of his lips as he steps over the threshold of the door and out into the darkened corridor.  
  
  
Burr’s office is lit by a single candle. Burr’s office is never vacant these days.  
  
“Alexander,” Burr says, looking up from his own sheaf of papers in surprise.  
  
“Aaron Burr,” he says in response, every syllable a challenge. "Sir." And Burr rises from his desk, the gauntlet thrown down, the meaning implicit.  
  
It doesn’t take him long to reach the edge, his climax stronger for the time he held off, Burr’s hand clenching the spray of new and old bruised flesh along his raw ass. He dips his head, bites and sucks against the flesh of Burr’s neck to keep his voice down; these hallways are not nearly as private as those outside Washington’s office.  
  
“Thank you,” he chokes against a mouthful of fine cotton collar as Burr strokes him through it.  
  
Even through his daze, he can’t help wondering who he is actually thanking.


	2. this page left intentionally blank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever they have takes place between words unspoken and unwritten, in the pieces of parchment crumpled up in frustration and then flattened out and turned over to start afresh on the blank side. It comes in bursts of irritation that stem from an undefinable love. Alexander does not know how _not_ to love. He has never known the virtue of moderation. He loves or he hates; he fights or he fucks; he writes screeds of anger or letters of passion. It’s one or the other and he does not know how to choose.

Scarcely an hour has passed before the regret sets in.  
  
Alexander returns to Washington’s office, his person still in a spectacular state of disarray, but it is too late. He finds it cold, dark, empty. The President has retired for the night. He supposes he should have assumed it would be so.  
  
He isn’t sure what to do, where to go from here. His body aches. He is so, so tired. His muscles feel wrung out and worn, his clothes were a mess even before he visited Washington in the first place. The week has taken its toll on his appearance — he recalls the glimpse he caught of himself in the wide, mirrored hall on the way to Burr’s office, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the way the lines on his face seemed even more pronounced in the dim light. He is a wreck.  
  
So he returns to his office. The late hour precludes the journey home; he’d only log an hour or two in bed before waking, and at this point, he’s not certain he could spare the energy. Alexander does what he has taken to doing these past few months, as his work and the Reynolds affair have begun to encroach on his comfort in his own home. He balls up his jacket beneath his desk and lies down on his stomach, head turned to the side, on the floor.  
  
The position, he thinks, is clever; it affords him a bit of safety, or at least the illusion of it. Should anyone come calling, they will see only an empty room from the doorway. Much as he would prefer a feather bed and to fall asleep curled up against another, this will do. It’s fine. He thinks, on some level, that he deserves it.  
  
And so the hours tick away, Alexander sprawled beneath his desk, struck by the chill of the room without his jacket. He keeps his eyes shut, in hopes that sleep will catch him, drag him down beneath the tide of his restless energy, but his racing mind and pulse seem determined to keep it at bay. He wonders idly, as the clock chimes four, if it’s possible to be too tired to fall asleep. And if he felt capable of doing work, forming words, he’d sit up and start the day, but his mind is in tatters.  
  
He breathes. Slowly. Seven counts in, seven out. Alexander counts the beats as he waits for his own pulse to stabilize.  
  
The way Washington had looked at him — that mix of disappointment and hurt, the way he had simply retreated back into stoicism instead of pushing Alexander further, demanding an apology. Shame blooms in his stomach as he wrenches his eyes tighter shut, tears pricking at the inner corners.  
  
Burr has never been one for apologies. “I hate them,” he once confided in Alexander, late one night as they jointly wrote the summation for one of their first trials as co-counsel. “Do or don’t do, but don’t waste words on promises. Apologies only serve to make one party feel better, and it’s rarely the wronged one.” Burr does not accept apologies, and so Alexander has never bothered with them.  
  
Eliza accepts them gracefully, but then, who can read her intent? In all things, she strives for grace, for humility. Alexander has never known his wife to be bitter or petty. He does not anticipate the day she’ll have means and reason to make him grovel.  
  
Laurens — he does not think about the apologies he never offered Laurens.  
  
But Washington is another story. Washington is another set of problems entirely. So much of Alexander's life has been spent at his side, never quite his equal, but always his right hand. But what would the left hand be without the right? Has he not been as crucial to the war, to the Constitution, to the administration, to America, as Washington himself? True, he reminds himself, he is not a son, he is not a wife. He is —  
  
Whatever they have takes place between words unspoken and unwritten, in the pieces of parchment crumpled up in frustration and then flattened out and turned over to start afresh on the blank side. It comes in bursts of irritation that stem from an undefinable love. Alexander does not know how _not_ to love. He has never known the virtue of moderation. He loves or he hates; he fights or he fucks; he writes screeds of anger or letters of passion. It’s one or the other and he does not know how to choose.  
  
He’s good at it. He has always been so good at making people fall in love with him. He has built his life on the foundation of the adoration of others. Brick by brick, love by love, he collects them all, and once you’re in love with Alexander Hamilton, you belong to him forever. Kitty Livingston, John Laurens, Angelica Schuyler, the Marquis de Lafayette. William Duer. Burr. Eliza. Maria. (His stomach churns again as he considers the last one.)  
  
And Washington is the break in the pattern, the wrench in the system. Washington is the only one of which whose love Alexander cannot take ownership. His love has always been a privilege, something bestowed on Alexander passively instead of something he is free to _take_. It irritates him. It annoys him beyond words, the lack of control he has over this strange, nebulous thing.  
  
It grounds him. Washington’s hands and his words and the way he keeps Alexander in pursuit has kept him sane for so many years. He doesn’t know what he would do without it.  
  
  
“Alexander.”  
  
He blinks once or twice, groggily. His body aches, sprawled on his belly beneath his desk. The room is lit with afternoon sunshine — _oh hell_ , it’s daytime, he doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep —  
  
The hand on his back gets a little heavier. “Son. Wake up.”  
  
He grits his teeth and opens his eyes. Washington crouches above him, wearing a look of eminent concern. “How did you find me?” he slurs, his voice barely a croak. His limbs are too heavy to even consider sitting up.  
  
“You missed a Cabinet meeting, Alexander, it didn’t take much in the way of deduction to think to check your office.” Washington sits back on his heels as Alexander begins to stir. “I see sleep has finally caught up with you.”  
  
“Sir, I’m so sorry—” He eases out from beneath the desk and sits up, sucking up a little hiss of pain as he puts weight on his bruised ass for the first time since the night previous. “I didn’t — I missed the meeting, my God, that’s never happened. Did Jefferson—”  
  
“I informed Jefferson that you were indisposed,” Washington says. Alexander shifts, rising to his knees. He has no idea why they’re both crouching in this office, a parody of stealth and deception, but he feels as though his legs might still be too shaky to stand. “You’re not in _trouble_ , Alexander, you don’t need to look at me like that.”  
  
“I didn’t — sir, I wasn’t certain if you —” He stumbles over his words, still groggy and barely awake. His mouth and his mind don’t seem to be working in synchronization yet. “Last night. I didn’t think — I’m sorry.”  
  
At this, Washington seems caught off guard. He pauses, frowning a little at Alexander as he fiddles with the buttons on the wrist cuffs of his jacket. “You’re sorry,” he repeats, half in disbelief.  
  
“I baited you. That business about Burr, I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean any of it,” Alexander confesses, the words coming out in a landslide of a rush. “I was tired, I was weak. I didn’t think. Please.”  
  
Washington is silent. He pushes himself off his heels, rising to his full height and taking a deep breath. It occurs to Alexander that perhaps he should follow, but then — Washington has never known him to beg forgiveness, never seen him laid this low. Perhaps, he thinks, he should remain kneeling, if only for the optics of it. (So it’s a performance. What isn’t?)  
  
“I just thought you should know,” Alexander adds in a softer voice, lowering his eyes to the ground for effect. The afternoon light flooding his office, illuminating the dust particles that stream through the air, is really far too bright for his liking, anyway.  
  
The silence screams between them for a few moments, before Alexander feels Washington stroke the nape of his neck with a stolid sort of affection. He runs his hand along Alexander’s cheek before tipping his chin upward, forcing eye contact, a gesture Alexander has come to know well. But the humiliation and buzz that floods his blood is nothing like what he has known before; there is no promise of gratification or release attached to it. Instead, he simply looks up at the man he calls Father, biting down more words. Talking is what led him to this position in the first place. For once in his life, he chooses to remain quiet, to say less instead of more.  
  
“Very well,” Washington says after a moment. He drops his hand to Alexander’s shoulder and tugs him upright. Alexander’s knees crack as he finally pulls himself to a standing position, and he reaches back to steady himself on the desk as Washington presses a single kiss to his hairline.  
  
“Thank you,” he murmurs against Washington’s broad chest, and then steps back, looking up to meet the President’s eye. Not in defiance, not in challenge, but with a hint of promise, with the knowledge that he must — he _has to_ — do better by his commander. As he always has. As he always will.  
  
“Secretary Jefferson has requested a meeting over your plan for the banks,” Washington says casually as he steps away and adjusts his shirt. “Perhaps you should prepare. He seems unlikely to be moved by rhetoric alone.”  
  
“He won’t be moved at all,” Alexander says bitterly as he swipes his jacket from the floor and shakes out the dust and the wrinkles. “I’ll have better luck convincing Randolph.”  
  
“Then do that.” Washington pauses near the door, watching as Alexander shrugs back into his jacket, brushing stray bits of lint from the bottle-green velvet. “I appreciate your candor, Alexander.”  
  
Alexander pauses, his face warming a little as he considers the consequence of the night previous. “You don’t — you won’t hold it against me.”  
  
“No.” Washington does not waste words. “Go, son, you should wash before you meet with Jefferson.”  
  
“Might I pay you a visit later?” His tone is almost a touch too apologetic, too pathetic, and he cringes as he hears himself, but Washington does not seem to flinch. He turns around in the doorway to give Alexander the slightest nod.  
  
“If you find success with Randolph later today, perhaps,” Washington says. “Get it handled. I have faith in you, son.”  
  
Alexander presses his lips together, willing himself not to smile too widely. He smooths out the wrinkles in his breeches, wishing he’d remembered to return his spare suit to the office closet the last time. He’ll have to recover it from Burr. Later. Not now.  
  
There is work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt, and I think others felt, that this needed a reconciliation. So, uh, we're all good.


End file.
